


stop shivering

by van1lla_v1lla1n



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Canon-compliant clownery and homoeroticism, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Tom Wambsgans, Sharing Clothes, Workplace Shooting, implicit Tom/Shiv, s2e4 Safe Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/van1lla_v1lla1n/pseuds/van1lla_v1lla1n
Summary: What if there hadn't been a security guard on hand when the shooting went down at ATN?-----Tom and Greg lock down in Tom's office.
Relationships: Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans
Comments: 19
Kudos: 55





	stop shivering

Tom lost Mark Ravenhead in the chaos after the shot went off. He’d opened his office door, leaned out to try to figure out what was going on, and Greg was _there_ , standing up from his desk in a rush and bowling past Tom into his office. People were crashing into each other in the hallway, some shouting incoherently, one woman clearly yelling “Shots fired!”

“Shut the door, Tom. Shut the fucking door!” Greg said from behind him. “Close it. There’s a shooter. Can’t you hear them? Close the door, man. You’re supposed to close the door.”

“Alright, Greg, I got it. I’m trying to figure out what the fuck is happening.”

“There’s a fucking shooter is what’s happening! Fucking lock the door, Tom. We have to turn out the lights. Didn’t you do the training module?” Greg was hovering behind him, apparently unwilling to get close enough to the door to do any of this himself.

And no, Tom had not done the fucking training module. Workplace trainings were for the plebs. The people who made the rules didn’t need to review the rules.

“I’m working on it, Greg. Would you fucking chillax? Go sit down.” Greg did not go sit down; Greg paced.

“Fuck, we’re so fucked. This room is, like, not safe, Tom? Isn’t there supposed to be a safe room somewhere? Why didn’t we go there?”

“I don’t know, Greg, is there a fucking safe room? You’re the one who did the training module.”

“I panicked, Tom. I’m panicking, like, right now, actually? I’m going to fucking die here, man, because you didn’t do the training module.”

“Shut the fuck up about the training module, Greg, I swear to god.” Snapping at Greg would definitely not calm him down, but it made Tom feel momentarily in control of the situation.

Greg was fidgeting frantically, staring worriedly at the door and cursing a litany of _fucks_. “Should we bar the door? Like, move your desk in front of it? I think we should block the door.” He started dragging Tom’s couch over, then stood there looking at it, wringing his hands.

“Fuck, Tom. We’re so fucked! Totally fucked. You have a whole fucking wall of windows? What if they come in from the outside? I can’t fucking believe this. Oh my god, oh my _god_ —”

Tom finally slapped a hand over Greg’s mouth, looking up into his face. “Greg. _Greg_. Shut up. Shut the fuck up.” Greg twisted his chin away, grabbed at Tom’s wrist to push it off his face, eyes full panic, and Tom swatted him off, held him still by his throat in one hand and cheekbones in the other.

“Greg? _Shut. Up._ You’re not fucking helping. I need you to calm the fuck down.” Greg held onto Tom’s wrists but stopped resisting, and Tom slowly lowered his hand from Greg’s mouth, sliding it down over his jaw to rest on his shoulder. He let his other hand drift to the side of Greg's neck. “Okay, buddy? You good?”

Greg nodded silently, looking down at Tom wide eyed, breathing wavery and shallow. Tom started to feel a little flighty, touching his assistant’s neck like this behind closed doors. It was supposed to be a calming, grounding touch, but Tom could just imagine what someone would think, if they were to walk in just then to see him standing here like he was about to confess his ardent fucking admiration. He cleared his throat and, looking for something else to do with his hands, loosened Greg’s tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt (as if the first steps of undressing his assistant behind closed doors were somehow an improvement?).

“I don’t want to die, Tom. Not here, not in the fucking ATN office,” Greg said, letting Tom push his jacket off his shoulders.

Tom set Greg’s jacket down and talked to him quietly while they moved the desk in front of the couch to block the door: “We’re not dying, Greg. We’re good. We’ve got the lights out and the door locked and barred, and we’ll just sit tight here until we hear from the security guys, okay?” Tom wasn’t sure the moved furniture would do much good in reality, but the physical barriers seemed to calm Greg down.

They sat down against the wall behind the resituated desk. Tom tried to call Shiv but couldn’t get a signal—too many people trying to use their phones, maybe. He checked his email and found a company-wide message telling everyone to shelter in place: lock their offices, turn out the lights, and stay quiet until they got a call or another email to do otherwise, and not to open their doors before then.

Tom handed his phone to Greg to read the instructions. Greg’s whole body was vibrating, and Tom got up to find the gray cardigan he kept in the office. He handed it to Greg and sat back down next to him, said, “Put this on. You’re shaking like a chihuahua in a thunderstorm. Fucking obnoxious.”

Greg pulled the sweater on, sat there quiet with his shoulders hunched up tense. Tom sighed and put an arm around him.

“We’re alright, buddy,” he said. “Could be here a bit while they check everything out. You good?”

“I can’t take this shit, man,” Greg said, turning his face into Tom’s shoulder. “I didn’t sign up for all this. I don’t even want to be in at ATN.”

“Right, because of your principles, huh? Ha!”

“I want the fuck out, Tom. I think I need to go to another department.” Greg sat up, pulling away a little.

“Well, the whole building’s locked down right now, Greg. It’s not just ATN.”

“Yeah, but the whole building didn’t have shots fired, man. People don’t get shot in fucking digital.”

“We don’t know that anybody got shot _here_ , Greg.”

“Sure, no, but, like, obviously some shit went down. Like, there’s at minimum a gun somewhere on this floor, right? And there’s other shit I’m not cool with, you know that. I just don’t think—I don’t think I want to do it anymore.”

Tom tightened his arm around Greg’s shoulders, pulling him back against him, a little unwittingly, thinking about the prospect of losing him to another department. To someone else. Not a thing he really wanted to be thinking about.

“Come on, Greg. You’d leave me like that?”

“It’s not like that, man. We’re friends. I wouldn’t be leaving you—just, like, branching out a little. Stretching, you know?”

“What if I got you a big raise, though? Would that do it? Nice new office, one with a door and a lock? Get you out of that little shit cube in the hall?” Tom realized his hand was gripping Greg’s shoulder, forced himself to relax.

Greg snuck a glance up at Tom, smiling a little, and looked away quickly.

“Yeah?” Tom said. “You like that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I like that,” Greg said. He rested his head on Tom’s shoulder. “At least if we don’t get shot to death before then.”

Tom threaded his fingers into Greg’s hair, tugged at it lightly, like a warning. “Stop your catastrophizing, man. We’re not dying in here. Alright?” He squeezed Greg around the shoulders when he didn’t respond. “Alright?”

Greg nodded, turning his face into Tom’s neck. Tom swallowed, hating how much it sounded like a nervous gulp, felt Greg’s nose cold and breath hot on his neck. Tom leaned over a little, trying to look down at his face. “Greg? You good?”

Greg raised his head to look up at him, eyes wide and earnest. He hadn’t pulled away even a little, and his face was so close Tom froze—afraid of his breath, afraid of moving at all.

“Yeah,” Greg said. He hummed softly, gaze shifting between Tom’s eyes and down to his mouth. And then Greg leaned in and kissed him, soft and chaste, lingering briefly. His cheeks were ruddy when he pulled away, his mouth hanging open almost surprised.

Tom stared at him, let his arm drop from around Greg’s shoulders, said quietly, his voice almost resigned: “Greg, what the fuck.” As in _what the fuck are you doing?_ And _why the fuck did I like it?_

Greg looked away quickly then, muttered, “Sorry?”

Tom pushed his shoulder. “ _Sorry_ , Greg? You’re fucking _sorry_?”

“I’m sorry!” He tried to stand up but Tom caught his wrist and tugged him back down.

“You can’t just kiss someone and immediately say you’re fucking sorry, Greg.”

“Tom, _Tom_ , just—”

“What the fuck is that, Gregory? Who does that? You’re a goddamn fucking liar. You’re fucking—”

Greg put his hand over Tom’s mouth, as Tom had done to him earlier, but much more apologetic. Greg said, “Sorry? I just—you’re kind of raising your voice, and we’re supposed to be quiet? So can you maybe, just, tone it down a little?”

Tom yanked Greg’s hand off his face and whisper-yelled at him: “ _Tone it down_ , Gregory? Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re such a little liar. Say it again. Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m—I’m sorry, Tom.”

“Are you, Greg? Are you really fucking sorry?”

“Well, I am now,” Greg muttered, looking away.

“Fuck you, Greg.”

“Fuck you too, Tom.” Greg crossed his arms, sullen and petulant, and Tom leaned over to get in his face.

“No, you don’t get to say that to me, Greg, not when—” Greg hushed him, eyes pleading, and Tom quieted back down to an angry whisper. “Not when you tried to fucking break up with me! And then kissed me? And then _apologized_ for it? How am I supposed to interpret all this, Greg?”

“I don’t know, Tom. I don’t know!”

“Well, you wishy-washy fuck, you goddamn pair of beach sandals, did you mean it or not?”

“Uh, which, the kiss?” Greg fidgeted, not quite looking at Tom. “I mean, well—yeah. Yeah, I meant it.”

Tom sat there staring at him, and Greg blathered on anxiously: “I don’t know, man. It was a tense moment? I was feeling, like, the existential stress? You know, of like imminent potential mortality? And it just seemed like, you know, it could be the right—”

“Shut the fuck up, Greg.” Tom grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him hard, almost angry. His other hand grasped the placket of his cardigan, and the realization of Greg wearing something of his sent an unexpected rush of possessiveness over him. He gasped in a breath, mouth still pressed messy to Greg’s, and slid his hand under the loosened collar of Greg’s shirt, thumb braced under his collarbone.

Greg kissed him back just as feral, his fingers digging into Tom’s ribs. Tom pressed against Greg’s chest, forcing him to lean back, and chased him down to the floor, cradling his idiotic skull in his hand as he licked into his mouth. Greg wrapped an arm around his neck, smoothed a hand down his back, and Tom was just pulling away, hurriedly avoiding Greg’s earnest gaze, to kiss his jaw, when his phone rang in his jacket pocket on the desk.

They froze and met each other's eyes in a split second of panic. Tom cursed, scrambling up to dig out his phone and trying not to trample Greg in the process.

“Tom Wambsgans,” he answered, voice nervous. (He could blame that on extenuating office circumstances.) He stood looking out the window, watching from the corner of his eye as Greg sat up to lean against the wall.

“Tom. This is Colin. Just letting you know we’ve cleared your floor. You and any ATN employees remaining on the floor are free to leave.”

“Right. Ah, right. Thank you, Colin.” He hung up, rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, then looked over at Greg, who looked like a walk of shame embodied, all disheveled and blushing and breathless, wearing Tom’s sweater.

“We’re good, Greg. They said we’re clear to go.”

“Fuck. Thank god.”

They moved the furniture back just enough to get the door open, found the rest of the floor empty. The elevator ride down was quiet and awkward.

In front of the building, Greg said, “Hey, uh, Tom? Would you wanna come over? I’m still feeling a little spooked, and it might be nice, just to have company for a while? You know?”

“Sorry, buddy, I’ve really gotta check on Shiv. She was supposed to be in today too, and I haven’t been able to get ahold of her yet.”

“Alright. Yeah, sure. That’s, that’s fine,” Greg said. He started unbuttoning Tom’s cardigan. “Here, let me give you—”

Tom touched Greg’s hands to stop him and pulled away quickly. “Just wear it home, buddy. You look like enough of a mess already.” He paused, looking up the street and back at Greg. “But, hey—I, uh, about earlier? We should—I want to talk about it. Maybe tomorrow? We can hang out, you and me? You can, ah, bring my sweater back?”

Greg nodded, smiling at him hopefully. Tom went on, nervous: “And I’ll, ah, I’ll start working out your new office, okay?”

Tom’s car pulled up at the curb, and as Tom backed toward it on the sidewalk, Greg said, “And the raise. Raise too, right?”

“You fucking slimeball,” Tom said, laughing. “Yes, and the raise. One of us isn’t a fucking liar, Greg.” He slammed the car door shut before Greg could see his blush, embarrassed by how much the memory of a three-minute makeout was affecting him. Maybe Tom wasn't a liar this time, but he was absolutely fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Greg's completely unadulterated panic re: the office shooting and Tom's verified ability (e.g., with Shiv at Tern Haven) to be comforting, when he feels like it
> 
> Also, for more Tom and Greg locked-in-the-office shenanigans, you should read ["Hybrid Moments"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27349366) by sunsets4muggings :))


End file.
